THE EFFECTS OF SEASON, PRETRAINING, AND SCENT ON THE EFFICIENCY OF TRAPS FOR CAPTURING RECRUITED HONEY-BEES (HYMENOPTERA, APIDAE)

A portable trap was designed to capture honey bees recruited to the fi eld by dancers. An infrared phototransistor placed in the entrance tun nel of the trap sensed an incoming bee and turned on a talking clock, which in turn activated a voice-actuated audio tape recorder that reco rded the time. We tested the effectiveness of traps for capturing bees recruited by four dancer bees (1) during two seasons when local flowe r densities differed, (2) with or without a group of bees pretrained t o enter traps for food, and (3) when the scent used in traps and at th e dancers' feeding station was changed just prior to recruitment trial s or was not changed. One trap was put out at each of four distances ( 50, 100, 150, and 200 m) from the hive, while dancers fed on concentra ted sucrose at the feeding station located at 150 m in the same direct ion. Recruited bees that approached the traps but did not enter were c ounted by observers. More bees were recruited and captured in traps wh en the local flora was sparse (fall) than when flowers were abundant ( summer), when bees were pretrained versus not pretrained, and when the scent was not changed just prior to recruitment trials vel sus change d. The distributions of number of bees counted at the four distances a t scented recruit stations and trapped were similar only when bees wer e pretrained and the scent was not changed during recruitment trials. However, the highest proportion of bees trapped in a trial at 150 m (d istance to dancers' feeding station) was when bees were pretrained and the scent was changed.